“I’ll regret this day as long as I live. I guess lots of people were waiting for this kind of thing to happen. It’s getting where I can’t even leave the house without something happening to me.” (The New York Post, October 19, 1956)

That’s what Elvis Presley said on October 18, 1956,

Elvis Arrest, according to a United Press story, “Presley, a broad-shouldered, well-built man of 21, who would be in about the light heavyweight class, if slugged for a living rather than strumming and singing, jumped out of his automobile and landed a stiff punch on Hopper’s jaw.” A total of five blows were struck before two Memphis patrolmen standing on the corner rushed in to break up the fracas. A witness, Harvey Huff, told the officers that Hopper had “hit Presley in the back of his head.” The cops also claimed that when they first grabbed Hopper, “he was trying to unlimber a small pocket knife.”

Justifying his actions, Elvis said at the scene, “I can take slurring remarks, but when somebody hits you, it’s a different story.”

• Press exaggerated Presley’s vital stats

The tale of the tape for the combatants, according to press reports, was Elvis, age 21, 6’1” and 185 pounds versus Hopper, age 42, 5’5”, 160 pounds, and Brown, age 21 at 225 pounds. Hopper got by far the worst of it. (Witness Huff later said Hopper’s eye looked like a “traveling bag.”) Presley and Brown, who admitted that Elvis “just barely did hit me in the left eye,” emerged with scratches.

All three men were arrested and taken to Police Headquarters, where they were booked on identical charges. When asked to give his name at the station, Elvis quipped, “Well, maybe you’d better put down Carl Perkins.” After all three posted $52 bail, they were ordered to appear in court the next day. About an hour after the fight, a reporter called Elvis’s home to get a comment from the singer. However, Vernon Presley told him that his son “was out in the back yard feeding the mule.”

The Elvis mugshot, poster

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